


Dry Ground

by cytheriafalas



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments (Movies), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character death if you read it that way, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 22:24:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9260465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cytheriafalas/pseuds/cytheriafalas
Summary: Companion piece to Stones on a Lake, from Jace's POV. Alec's been badly hurt.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Companion to [Stones on a Lake](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9209375). You don't necessarily need to read it to understand though.
> 
> Come find me at [Fangirling Tendencies](http://fangirlingtendencies.tumblr.com).

They’d gotten separated somewhere in the fight, and the first sign Jace got that something was wrong was a _fluttering_ in the part of his mind where Alec resided. He’d felt Alec in pain before, felt Alec in agony before, but this was different. A sensation that made nausea rise in Jace’s throat. He was suddenly unsteady on his feet, and only the flash of Isabelle’s whip saved him from a demon.

“Jace, what—“

“Alec.”

“What?”

Jace caught Izzy by the arm. “Where is Alec?”

The fight had spread out over most of Central Park, clumps of Shadowhunters fighting here and there. Isabelle looked around, orienting herself. “He went that way—“

Jace stopped listening, sprinting with everything the runes could give him. Now that she’d given him the direction, he followed the tug of their bond. There, on the other side of the hill. Alec was there. The fluttering was gone, but there was still something deeply wrong with their bond.

He crested the hill in time to see Alec begin pushing himself up on all fours. Jace slowed, relief tempering the initial panic. Then Alec’s hand slipped.

No.

Jace started running again, stumbling down the hill. The ground everywhere else was dry, even when churned up by feet. If the ground beneath Alec was wet enough… No.

“Alec!”

Jace had so rarely seen Alec so still. He’d always been the more patient of the two of them, always the one to stand and take whatever Maryse dished out. His rebellion was always to be better, better than they expected of him, better than they could have ever hoped he’d be. He’d made Jace better, and now he was lying so still…

Blood-wet dirt splashed on Alec’s cheek when Jace dropped to his knees beside him. He didn’t flinch. Jace rolled him onto his back, taking quick stock of his injuries. There were so many.

“I’m fine.” Alec’s voice was so quiet Jace could barely hear him. He hadn’t even opened his eyes.

“Bullshit, you’re not.”

Jace reached for his stele, only to find his hand close on air. He’d lost his stele somewhere.

He gathered Alec in his arms, padding Alec’s head the best he could on his lap, hunching over him as though that could protect him from his injuries. He should never have let them get separated.

“Alec, Alec, Alec, please. Alec, can you hear me?”

Nothing. Not even the flicker of his eyes beneath his eyelids. Jace looked back over his shoulder, hoping he’d lost his stele just when he’d dropped to Alec’s side, but it was nowhere in sight. He could just see a group of Shadowhunters, battered, bruised, cresting the hill, Isabelle at their head.

“Jace, help me.”

“I’m here. I’m here.” Jace looked back at Isabelle. “I need a stele!”

She pulled out her stele and made a mark on her arm—a speed rune—and seconds later her stele was in Jace’s hand. He hesitated, prepared to draw the _iratze_ , but suddenly unsure if it would work, and what he would do if it didn’t. Isabelle caught a handful of Alec’s shirt and tugged it down, presenting some skin for Jace to draw on.

“What are you waiting for? Jace, _hurry_.”

He started with _iratze_. Nothing. Jace swore, then tried again, first with _mendelin_ and _amissio_. Still nothing. She accepted the stele back from him, then clutched his shoulder. “Jace? Is he…”

“He’s alive.” His breathing was starting to steady, but it was so shallow, and he was so still. “Where’s—“ a thought occurred to him. “Damn it, where’s Magnus?”

“I’ll find him,” Isabelle promised. She dropped her stele at Jace’s side in case he needed it and broke into a run, shouting to other Shadowhunters to find Magnus.

Alec stirred in Jace’s arms, turning his head toward Jace. His eyelids fluttered, then Alec fell still.

“Hey,” Jace whispered. “Alec, can you hear me?”

Alec went rigid. For fifteen, twenty, thirty seconds, he didn’t move, then the seizing started. His head jerked, his back arched, and his hands fisted. Jace bent forward over him, cushioning his head as best he could. “Alec, no. Alec, please!” He thought the convulsions would never end, that Alec’s body would break apart before he would get better. “Please, please, brother.”

Finally, finally, finally the seizure stopped. It could only have been a minute at most, but it felt so much longer. Alec’s body relaxed. His breathing steadied, his head tilted in Jace’s direction. His fingers twitched when Jace took his hand. But his eyes stayed closed.

There was a band of terror around Jace’s heart. His hands shook when he brushed Alec’s hair out of his face.

“My parabatai, Alec, please.”

Everything had been going _so well_ for Alec the past few months. Jace had been so scared for him for so long, so afraid that he would reach his breaking point, that Maryse would finally ask too much of him. She’d asked too much of him every day of his life, and even Alec couldn’t withstand her forever. But since meeting Magnus, he’d begun to bend before he broke. He’d begun to find his own balance, and Jace no longer spent each day focused on their bond and afraid he would feel it snap back on him, empty and alone.

Alec’s eyelids fluttered, forehead furrowing. “I’m scared.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, his words slurred. He’d reached up for Jace, but his hand dropped back to the ground, hitting the drying blood and dirt mixture with a dull slap.

“I’m here, Alec. Magnus is coming.” He hoped Magnus was coming. Everyone was so spread out. How would Isabelle even find him? “Don’t be scared, Alec. Please, stay with me.” His voice cracked. “Brother, please.”

He rested his hand on Alec’s chest, feeling for the rise and fall of it. He wasn’t moving. Jace waited to feel him breathe again, and there was nothing.

“Alec!”

A portal burst to life right next to him. Magnus must have been running when he entered it, Isabelle just behind him, because he nearly overshot, skidding to a halt and almost tripping over his own feet. He rounded on Alec, summoning his magic. He held his hand over Alec’s chest and a Alec drew in a sharp breath, then another.

“Lift him,” Magnus snapped, his hand still hovering over the center of Alec’s chest, “carry him. I’m opening a portal to the Institute.”

Jace did as ordered, numb. Isabelle picked up her discarded stele and Alec’s weapons, eyes wide with the same terror Jace felt. Maryse met them just inside, taking Alec’s hand and running with them toward his room.

“Alec? Alec, can you hear me?”

He didn’t even acknowledge Maryse’s presence, if he even heard her. Isabelle ran ahead of them, shoving the door to Alec’s room open and holding it for them. Jace lowered Alec to his bed. He didn’t move, even when his hand slipped from Maryse’s and dropped off the edge of his bed, hanging there. Jace couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.

Jace caught Magnus’s arm as he went to move to Alec’s side.

“Can you save him?”

Magnus released a shaking breath. “I don’t know.”


End file.
